As this will involve going from a reasonable sized house to something slightly smaller than a shoe box I am having to give away, throw away or sell most of my personal possessions and furniture (and I do mean most). I have already donated my library of about 1000 books to Oxfam and I am busy selling my CD collection on eBay at the moment. I hate this man:
All this takes time and I don't have much time left. So, blogging will be sporadic at the best at OCICBW... over the next few weeks. I will try to produce the Prayer List each day and hopefully cobble together a podcasted communion service on Sunday. If anyone wants to copy JimB and submit a guest post or two, that would be nice.
{{{MP}}}
ReplyDeleteIf you can't do podcasts and Loud Fridays and Midnight Jukeboxes anymore, I understand . . . but I'm gonna miss 'em. :-(
Oh Mad Priest, I'm so sorry.
ReplyDeleteA lot of priests have accrued assets such as their own home before they put themselves forward for ordination. As a lorry driver living in an East Midlands' council estate I never did. I was relying on the Church to house me, pay me a stipend and eventually give me a pension.
ReplyDeleteHaving given up everything to work for the Church, paying to go to university and getting a degree in a subject of absolutely no use for anything other than being a priest, I now have no income and no pension to speak of. The one perk of being a priest is that you get to live in a nice house even though the pay is poor. Now, I'm going back to a housing situation that is worse than my council house that I gave up when I was told to become a priest.
I read the other day that, thanks to the Confraternity of the Blessed sacrament and other generous bodies, the 60 or so priests who left the Church of England for the Ordinariate all have somewhere to live and a stipend to live on. I've remained loyal to the C. of E. and I have got nothing. Nobody from the Church visits me. Nobody from the Church has offered any help. Nobody from the Church gives a fuck.
And I'm supposed to get over it?
I wonder if your/our friend Ruth Gledhill would tell your story? The spiritual season seems a little raw with the non-doings and over-doings at Lambeth and beyond...it seems the Kenyans are coming (as the Anglican followers and the general population fall away in Kenya) and the hope to eventually replace retiring priests...hell, you´re a YOUNG PRIEST, not-so-mad but pissed off with the C of E system (like most of England apparently)...tell your story somewhere (beyond here at a public venue if you can as you´ve got popular appeal)!
ReplyDeleteLeonardo Ricardo (who can´t sign in and am blaming it on the ABC and his sidekick at York)
Keep your pecker up (I know it's hard), but God's got a purpose for you whatever they go and do.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm certain of that, Robert, for the simple reason I can see the purpose in the last five years of my life. My blog changed things and changed people.
ReplyDeleteBut I am having problems with what I have lost because of this purpose and a little angry with God for giving the pay off to everybody else but me. There are people in England whose careers are going to take off because they have now taken over what I started. None of them acknowledge me so my part will be written out of history just as my bishop has written me out of history. I have been disappeared. These people are now fighting for gay rights and against the Covenant, but none of them have fought for me. In fact, I think they want me to be disappeared because to acknowledge me might effect their promotion prospects and even the success of the campaigns I started.
In fact, my purpose may be over already.
MP I mourn with you and pray for justice for you. Peace, my friend.
ReplyDeleteBut I am having problems with what I have lost because of this purpose and a little angry with God for giving the pay off to everybody else but me.
ReplyDeletePsalms, Lamentations, and kvetchings by a Certain Someone hung up on Certain Lumber Products: you're in good company, MP. Hang (ouch!) in there.
I am sorry to hear this and ashamed at the same time because the Church is not behaving in a Christian way. I am afraid that Jesus might not recognize the Church of England or even the Anglican Communion in general. You are in my prayers as you face this painful and difficult moment. I hope and pray that even better doors will be opened for you as you continue to serve God and God's people as faithful as you do. You are the hope of many
ReplyDeleteIt took me a long time to get over some of my own bitterness at certain career setbacks, intellectual thefts, and the like.
ReplyDeleteThat Yeats poem I sent you helped.
and falling in love with BP.
And finding a community and real relationships outside of my profession.
Because absolutely shitty as this is, MP, at least you have us to share it with. You are not alone.
Sure, I'm still bitter at times.
But I'm better, too.
And with a rousing chorus of "I will survive!" off I go...
Oh, this is dreadful. I'm so very sorry.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have any wisdom here at all and so I won't try to offer any.
You do know, of course, that you have my love and the promise of my prayers.
MP, get yourselves settled. The blog will be here when you get back. If I can think of a worthy topic or two I will submit some more things. If a few others do the same, we should be able to keep the place hopping.
ReplyDeleteI cannot send a music post, I do not have the technology or licenses. But I will talk to my son the graduate from radio communications school.
I know about being cast aside, ask me about our Sudan ministry here sometime. It hurts.
Maybe for some of us there is another calling. Maybe we are to be paladins, willing to fight the church's battle for justice even when it looks hopeless. I think of Nathan walking into certain death to tell David a story. There was a man with guts! We should consider starting an order of Nathan!
I am sorry things are so bleak right now.
FWIW
jimB
Word verification is, "Consents" of all things!
This does really suck!
ReplyDeleteI can't begin to tell you how much you and this blog has helped me. I have nothing to say really but and am praying. And in the words of Eric Cartman, Fuck Fuckity fuck fuck fuck...oops I swore...
I'm with everyone else here!
ReplyDeleteCan we collectively find homes for your most treasured posessions and store them for you? I could house the CD collection until one day you might be able to claim it back.
Yeah I'll take the CD's, thats for sure. (They're English ones so they might play the wrong way around down here).
ReplyDeleteI'll take any grog. Anything really, except your wife...one's enough.
I'd like to second what Ellie said above. Wish I could wave a magic wand and SHAZAM make everything perfect. Alas, no can do.
ReplyDeleteLove love love you, mi amigo.
I'd actually meant store things boxed up in the loft.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, MP, if there's anything we can store for you, shout!
We don't store wives.